OPINION POST

Fessing up…

Ok – it’s confession time… I’m a “mature Mum”. That’s a semi polite way of describing people who have kids in their 40’s (as opposed to describing my sense of responsibility).

There are three generations between my children and I.

This infographic from McCrindle shows the differences between generations nicely – anyone remember the Rubiks Cube, ABBA (oh yeah, they’re old enough that they made a come back) and Walkmans?

I grew up…	My kids can’t imagine a world without…
Before the internet	Hyper connectivity and social media (don’t get me started on the latter)
Pre-mobile phones	Smart phones, apps & emojis
When people had to go to a bank between 9am & 4.30pm	Online banking & shopping
When television had three channels	On demand TV & Netflix
Doing paper runs	Home delivery services
Hand me downs and recycled toys	Toys (oh so many toys)
Friends happily played in the school playground after school unsupervised	School gates are locked and friends play cyber games together from their own homes instead of being in the same location as each other (ok maybe not yet, but will do in the not too distant future)…
In a society where I could walk to school on my own at five years old	Parents have to drop kids to school and pick them up, and in some cases, sign their kids in and out of school
A stay at home parent during my formative years	Both parents working full time and they are in care longer than most adults work

The last point concerns me. What happened to society to cause this change? When I grew up there were no child care centres, so one parent had to stay home to raise the children. It seems these days the cost of living requires two incomes, or have we got greedy? Or is it that women have more opportunities to advance their careers today than they did back then?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for child care services. And yet there’s a bittersweet feeling because I’d rather be with my kids, helping them develop strong values and tools to navigate life’s little surprises. And if I’m absolutely honest, I wonder if the wholesome values I was taught growing up will transcend the generation gap? And if not, how can I make sure kids benefit from good old fashioned values?

Do other parents have the same concerns? I wonder… your thoughts appreciated. Leave a comment below.